Political Rant Warning: I am glad Scotland will remain part of the UK, but perhaps not why you think. The basic premise never made sense to me, Scotland has consistently been the poor sibling in this equation and now that theyre in a small window of oil wealth they think its time to split. A couple of problems- oil wealth, as Norway and Denmark has seen, is fleeting in the north sea; reserve levels are projected to fall consistently over the next several decades, making the optimistic math of Mr. Solomon problematic a decade out. This aside, the move to break a functioning union would have resulted in a cascade of schisms- Catalonia, Quebec, Transylvania and Flanders (to name a few); not to mention Texas as an outrider. The fundamental call is that they are either not being treated with the proper respect or that theyve been shouldering the weight of their fellow citizens for far too long. For the majority of the twentieth century we have seen a consolidation (with the exception of the Soviet Union) of nations and economic unions. This pulls down artificial economic barriers and has risen all boats in an unimaginable manner to our 19th century selves. My uncle notes that when he apprenticed in Denmark it took three weeks for a piece of steel to move from Hamburg to Denmark, today it take several hours if the steel is ready. So in conclusion creating artificial barriers may satisfy our ego, but it does much to harm our economic reality. Thank you Scotland, home to so many economists, bankers and industrialists for taking the long view.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:38:30 +0000
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